The Dutch public-private partnership Urban Farming Partners (UFP) signed a cooperation agreement with Citizen Farm on the 19th of January. UFP teams up with this local champion in the grow-your-own-food movement to develop a smart and sustainable urban farm in Singapore.

Urban Farming Partners are experts in food, logistics and urban planning and supported by the Dutch government. They team up with local partner Citizen Farm to develop and run the future operation of an integrated urban commercial farm in Singapore. Citizen Farm focuses on developing productive food gardens in tropical Singapore for clients like restaurants, schools, hotels, and residences. They aim to make the city more self-sufficient by growing food in underutilised spaces like rooftops, under viaducts, and everywhere in between.

The coming months, the partners shall take more major steps in making the integrated urban farm a reality.

During the 3rd annual Indoor AG Con Asia on January 16 – 17 in Singapore, the Netherlands highlighted its strengths in modern indoor agriculture. Concepts in sustainable, smart indoor farming from the Urban Farming Partners attracted visitors’ attention. Its flagship, the 3D printed scale model of the 101 Experience Tower, was an eye catcher. Especially the aspects of production close to the consumer, using high-yield technologies and an integrated food chain approach that increases food security contrast many current practices.

During a presentation on what can Asia’s indoor agriculture industry learn from Holland’s approach, Nienke Gelderloos highlighted the Dutch way of collaboration with clusters and cooperatives, multidisciplinary problem solving and smart solutions around water. Nienke is policy advisor agriculture at the Netherlands embassy in Singapore as well as liaison manager for Urban Farming Partners.

AgroFreshPark, a Poland based development initiative, signed on the 10th of January 2018 a cooperation agreement with Europejskie Centrum Gospodarcze (ECG) at the main Fruit and Vegetable Industry Fair in Poland, the TSW 2018, for the development of the first agrifoodcluster in Poland.

The three initiators and main shareholders of AgroFreshPark are Greenport Company, Kenlog b.v. and Blue Fifty, three companies with a track record in fresh food and flower logistics, real estate development and trade and utility management. They have been working together for the last three years to convert the Dutch “greenport” model into an efficient and effective production, logistic and trading structure for the fast developing Polish agri-food sector.

Europejskie Centrum Gospodarcze (ECG) is a Polish production, processing and international trading company of agricultural products and will, as part of the agreement, act as regional partner for the development.

AgroFreshPark is considered to be the first agrifood cluster of its kind in this part of Europe and shall be situated in Central Poland within the Łódzkie Region. Therefore, this agrifood cluster shall use the name AgroFreshPark Łódzkie. The strong growth of the Polish agricultural exports creates additional opportunities for both Dutch and Polish companies. AgroFreshPark Poland shall be a balanced import and export trading platform for the two countries.

AgroFreshPark Łódzkie shall consist of three related but functionally, different sections, i.e. the Fresh Park, a business park for transport/logistics (cross-docking), trade, packaging and processing of fresh produce, the Agro Park, an area reserved for large-scale greenhouse production with all the supporting infrastructure, and a Services Park, providing facility management, utilities, training and educational services, estate management, research, demonstration and promotion of technology, IT services and specific financial services.

AgroFreshPark earlier entered into cooperation agreements with Certhon and Jaksa for the engineering and construction of the greenhouses.

https://kenlog.nl/cms18/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IMG_2969.jpg12001600Mirjam Boekestijnhttps://kenlog.nl/cms18/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/logo-kenlog.pngMirjam Boekestijn2018-01-16 14:19:102018-01-16 15:54:13AgroFreshPark Łódzkie signs cooperation agreement with Europejskie Centrum Gospodarcze for the development of the first agrifoodcluster in Poland